Teller City/ Baker Pass

Starting out at the Powder Horn Cabins in Gould, CO we rode up to Teller City, CO.

From the USFS website I get the following information:

"TELLER CITY GHOST TOWN

The silver boom of the late 1800s caused many mining communities to spring up literally overnight. One of the largest and best preserved of these boom towns is Teller City, located in western North Park, Colorado. In its heyday, Teller City boasted a population of 1,300, had a 40-room hotel, a newspaper, and 27 saloons. In 1885, the bottom dropped out of the silver market, and the town went bust--residents left so quickly that dirty dishes were left on their tables."
http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/recreation/Heritage/crownjewels/index.shtml#tellercity

The area is absolutely breathtaking and any pictures i've seen do not do any justice to the views you will see. You will need to stop at Lily Lake in hopes of seeing a Moose lounging in the shallow water. The trail was fairly busy but we went on Labor Day weekend so I couldn't expect anything else, but everyone was friendly and we had a fantastic time.

At the Teller City site plan on spending at least an hour walking around exploring the ruins of old cabins and reading the stories of the residents of the abandoned Town.

After getting your fill of the Ghost Town hit the trail again and head back up towards Baker Pass. The entire trail isn't very difficult and a novice should have very little trouble. But keep in mind your altitude; we got hit by very hard rain as we neared the top of Baker Pass and the trail gets a little slippery when wet.

At the top of Baker Pass you can hit the foot trail and hike to the pass or to Parika Lake. Although the lake hike is tempting we opted against it due to the rain and the six mile hike one way! However if you're ambitious you should give yourself time to take the hike. Just being at the end of the ATV trail was breathtaking.

The Trail We Took:


View Teller City/ Baker Pass in a larger map

Funny Thing...

The first Trail i'm going to review on my Colorado ATV blog is in Wyoming!?!

Actually it's right on the Border of Wyoming and Colorado about 24 Miles North of Walden,CO. Near WyColo lodge, which is marked with the "B" on the map below. As a side note you can eat at WyColo Lodge or have a drink after a long days ride. They also offer Gas if you need to top off and they have rentals of machines, though I don't know the cost.


View Larger Map

We stayed in a small cabin at Oxyoke Ranch. It's very inexpensive; the cabins are definitely rustic but are great. They all have electricity, beds, and heat. There are community bathrooms that all the guests share but even though the cabins were full the weekend we were there this wasn't a problem...

Anyway back to the trails...

So obviously in Wyoming you need to have an ORV sticker for your ATV in order to ride. Also as a side note in Wyoming you can ride on most county roads with your ORV permit as long as you're a licensed driver. To get one you simply buy it over the counter. At the time of me writing this it only cost $15 bucks for each machine. Click here for current pricing and where to buy the ORV permit.

We actually are coming from Northern Colorado so to get to the cabins we came through Laramie and came in from the North East. Anyway took us about 3 1/2 hours from Fort Collins, and we didn't rush either.

We began our ride at Oxyoke Ranch; you can view the track we took here...

View OxYoke/ Miller Lake in a larger map



If you're interested in staying at Oxyoke Ranch email me for contact info. You won't find them in the yellow pages and they don't have a website!!

We went in August of this year and the weather was perfect for riding. We had to start by riding along HWY 230 on a trail that follows along on the west side of the road. It's not the greatest riding but better than trailering our machines everywhere we wanted to ride.

So after riding along 230 we hooked onto USFS Rd 544 AB. Very pretty trail back here and if you continue following the track we took it's an easy ride. Great for beginner riders or someone just out enjoying the scenery. Along the way we found alot of mud to drive through and get dirty in!! Yahoo!!!

There are a lot of spurs you can take which we took several. Some dead ended and some just were taking us off course to getting to our destination of Miller Lake.

We stopped at Miller Lake and hung out for awhile. The campground was closed so it was very peaceful.

The trip round trip along with exploring several spurs off the trail and playing in the mud took us the better part of the day. You could easily spend all day exploring all the trails in this area without seeing the same stretch of road twice.

The only depressing thing we experienced was all the Pine Beetle kill we saw. It is truly devastating. According to Bernie at Oxyoke Ranch they are expecting about 90% of the pines to be destroyed by the beetle and than fires within the next few years are expected to devastate the forest in this area and in a lot of the mountain areas in Colorado.

So I would encourage all of you that enjoy the outdoors to get out and experience the beauty of our Mountains now because it will be along time before we see them in all their glory again.

Anyway I hope you enjoy the track and let me know of your ATV trip up there.